I sincerely want to read EVERY post in this forum and there is no way to do that in a way that satisfies my "checklist brain." So I'm left with a taste of overwhelmed information overload.
Recent forum posts (all topics)
- *I* feel like I have ADHD - but it's sorta good by: megamom 10 years 10 months ago
- Thinking of hiring an organizer by: redhead1017 10 years 10 months ago
We have a storage unit that is filled to the brim with junk. Last summer DH told me that he needed to have another storage unit to organize from the bigger storage unit, and that he only needed it for a week (he charmed the storage unit manager into doing this). It is now January and I have been paying for two storage units this entire time. We have had this storage unit for 15 years, and he has made zero progress on organizing it. He has plenty of time (unemployed), but never makes any progress; well, unless you count spending 12 hours a day surfing the the Internet progress. I'm sick of paying all this money to store garbage and I'm sick of nagging him about it.
What I would like to do is hire an organizing team (a couple of my friends do this for their business) to come in and get rid of everything. Obviously one of us would need to be there, most likely him, since I work. I want to make this as low-stress as possible. I don't want him to feel like I'm sabotaging him, because that's how he'll see it. My personal thoughts are that I'm sick and tired of paying for this, he won't fix it, and this will get it done quickly. How do I present this to him without making him feel bad about himself, or getting mad at me? Any thoughts? I just don't want any conflict.
- Is this behavior ADHD or being a Jerk? by: AmyT 10 years 10 months ago
When my husband doesn't take his meds (which is most weekends or any day he doesn't have to go to work), he is constantly harping on everyone about things we didn't do, picking at the kids, physically bugging them like tapping their shoulder over and over just to get a rise, etc. Every single question I ask is met with a question in return. For example, "Are you mad at me about something?" His reply: "Should I be mad at you about something?" If I ask him how to do something like get a computer program to work, his reply is "Well how do you think you would do it?" Is this just something I'm blowing out of proportion, is it an ADHD trait (along the lines of provoking conflict), or just him being a butthead?
- List of Questions by: megamom 10 years 10 months ago
Compiled List from Materials
To the ADHD Spouse:
Do any of these apply to your marriage, your spouse, you?
• Do you feel as if your wife spends a lot of time blaming you for your marital issues?
• Does she nag you all the time?
• Does she suggest that you’re no good or never help her?
• Has she claimed that you don’t love her, even though you know that’s not true.
• Your spouse would say that you often forget things, or that if you are given a grocery list, you don’t bring home everything on the list.
• You intend to attend appointments and events, but often miss them due to poor planning.
• You may feel as if the person you married is buried deep within a nagging monster that lives in your home.
• The person you had cherished has been transformed into a control freak, trying to manage every single detail of your life together.
• No matter how hard you try, you can never do well enough for your spouse, even if you are successful elsewhere, such as in your work.
• The easiest way to deal with her is simply to leave her alone.
• Your spouse complains that you are selfish or lazy, that you don’t care about her or your family.
• You’re willing to admit that you make mistakes sometimes, but so does she—and certainly, no one is perfect.
• Are you frustrated because you are successful at work, but can’t seem to get a break from your wife at home?
• Did your wife used to be fun but now she’s just tired and complaining all the time – just a “stick in the mud”?
• Does your spouse tell you that you were dishonest about who you were when you were dating because you became a different person after you married?
• Do you wonder what happened to the woman you married? Does the disappearance of your “old wife” make you sad or angry?
• You wish she would just relax once in a while and live life as a happy person, instead of a harpy.
• Does your wife take over your jobs and tasks around the house because she doesn’t think you’ll do them? Claiming she feels like a slave?
• Does your wife say she is lonely and feels like a single parent?
• Does your wife say she wishes she had a true partner and that she cannot count on you to do “your part” in the marriage?
• Does she say she feels like you’re just another child she has to care for and raise?
• Does your wife tell you that she feels you don’t care about her feelings? If she’s upset with something that has happened (outside of the home and not something you did) does she complain that you don’t console or hug her to help her feel better?
• Was your courtship happy and exciting (and fast), but your marriage has been completely different? - Is there a "relatable" statement list? by: megamom 10 years 10 months ago
I've seen postings here and in other places of questions in quiz format of how to decide if you might have ADHD... but what I'm looking for is more of a list of statements as in the first two chapters of the book.
I want to approach my husband conversationally.. by saying something about how I found a list of statements that fit me.. and that I think this other list of statements might be how he feels. (Like "was your wife fun loving when you met but a complete nag now?"
THe quiz format leaves too much to the introspective.. "do you forget things a lot?" "do you miss appointments" stuff like that where they might immediately be defensive or might not even think it's ever a problem or that often... I want to appeal to his frustrations and emotions with our relationship... such as the "nagging" statement.
Ideas?
Thanks.
- But what about the good part of ADHD? by: megamom 10 years 10 months ago
I am certain my husband has ADHD... and that we should seek treatment. Probably meds.
But, my husband is a paramedic and firefighter... which are the jobs, information says, are great for these guys.
If he treats the problems, what happens to the strengths?
- Shuts down when I try to engage/brainstorm by: KL 10 years 10 months ago
I need help. My husband has ADHD, and does not want medication. So I suggested other options. I am trying to brainstorm solutions for some of our home and life issues. We can get past the chore issue, but when it comes to his coaching and work he clams up. He is so busy with coaching and work there is no time for me or himself. Its created a huge health issue for him (eats fast food everyday, gained a tremendous amount of weight it hurts to walk and gets hardly more than 5hrs of sleep a night). But when I want to understand why it takes so much time and brainstorm ways to make things easier he clams up and gets defensive. It doesn't take much. He says that he has triggers and that he knows I am not aware of them but he won't tell me what they are. In this case, I managed to find out he's worried I will judge him and think some aspects of his job that he spends his time on is not worthwhile/ important. If I tell him I won't judge or suggest he brainstorm with his other head coach ( if not with me), he gets really angry and clams up. I am trying to follow the guidelines in the back of the book but I must be doing something wrong. Help. I am losing hope.
He's not been formally diagnosed. He is just starting to realize he has it. I have ADD too. But I was in college when I found out and have been in treatment since. I don't claim to have all the answers... just have had more time to figure out what works for me. So I am super sensitive to his feelings. But having ADD myself means its takes a ton of effort to keep things together and I can't keep going in this way (i identify with the nom-ADD spouse ). So I am desperate to connect/ brainstorm and work on things together. Any advice on how to break through the wall?
- Strong versus stubborn by: I'm So Exhausted 10 years 10 months ago
I had another argument with my ADHD spouse.
The most ironic thing he said to me: "I am exhausted." Gosh - very strange. . . . . . . . . . .
I do not want to be saying who is right nor who is wrong. Our paradigms are so different.
We have not had any intimacy of any sort in very close to 3 years. Actually, on January 28th it will be exactly 3 years. I had thought I was deciding to refuse to be controlled by his anger - it has resulted in his being angry for a very long time. 3 years. How is that working for me? It is not.
He says he is defeated because I am punishing him by withholding sex. That is what he sees. I am with-holding sex to punish him. He cannot see I am lonely, overwhelmed by reasonability, very much missing intimacy, tired of assuming all the responsibility, tired of always doing everything his way, tired of not being heard, tired of walking on egg shells so as not to anger him. Frustrated by his lack of communication - I always feel I am being played. Frustrated when it feels like he is setting up situations to fail so he can say, "See, I told you." Grrrr.
I have worked hard on getting out of the parent-child relationship we were in. I have worked on my anger - I am so frustrated and have built up many walls of emotional protection.
I really am confused by his lack of seeing things as different-degrees of hurt. An example - if he forgets to get home in time to eat dinner together, oh well. For me, it was not "oh well" when he forgot to come home to go to church together on Christmas Eve. He sees them as exactly the same. Another example - 2 weeks ago he forgot to come home for a class we were going to take at church, even though I had reminded him of it earlier in the day. He says I am expecting him to BE PERFECT by attending all 8 classes.
This is not new stuff. It is stuff I am just not willing to put up with anymore. I NEED. I need companionship. I need partnership. I need support. I need respect for all that I have done for him along the years. I DO NOT understand why I should say "Thank You" to him for anything he does, yet he does not thank me for all I do - the household finances, his business finances, the laundry, the housework, the grocery shopping, the cooking. . . . . . .
If this was just my relationship to him that was sour, I would think a bit differently. He has vocalized often that he has NO relationships. No friends. No business relationships. And he is all alone.
Not to mention, he thinks I was very rude to somehow communicate to him that "he has issues."
Sheesh.
- ADHD spouse always failing at business ventures by: frustratedwife 10 years 10 months ago
My ADHD husband is always trying to start new business ventures. He has spent so much time and money in our 7 year marriage (and before that his parents were constantly financing his ideas) and nothing has ever worked but he says he will keep trying because he's not a quitter. The problem is he jumps into things without having enough money to back him up and eventually loses the business and his investment, because he can't support it while it's in its early stages. This is a man who has a business degree, he should know better! His latest venture is going to be quite costly and time consuming and we have no money to invest in it. I can see a disaster waiting to happen if he can get his hands on enough money to get started. Does anyone else have this problem? And how do you handle it? We fight so much because he has financially devastated us in the past yet doesn't see that he is going down the same path again and again. I try to reason with him but he says he's the one with the business degree and I don't know what I'm talking about. His mother has tried to discourage him too and he won't listen to either of us. I feel like he has no common sense and that irritates me to no end. Help!
Laurie
- Has my husband got ADHD or am i barking up the wrong tree ? by: alisteveb2009 10 years 10 months ago
I have been married to my lovely husband for 5 years come july. It is second time around for me and third for him. We began speaking on the internet via facebook we struck up a conversation through taking part in a game it was purely accidental. It took off from there, we were married a year to the day we met, i swore i would never marry again, however i fell hook line and sinker, it wasnt hard as i felt no-one had cared about me as much as this person, no-one listened to me as much as this person. Text messages were intense half hour intervals throughout the day. At one point i thought ...hold on a minit this is a bit OTT. But then i thought that was just him. I had moved in with him after 3 months, we couldnt bare to be apart. I look back and did feel that it was too good to be true but i felt so worshipped and loved i just went with the flow. The first night we stayed together i would wake up and find him staring at me. I was a bit freaked by this at first but then i thought to myself i felt the same way, loved to look at him, i was in love. I have read similiar stories on here the fairytale romance. However it has gone from such heights to feeling like i dont exist anymore and have been wondering what have i done wrong ?
He was in work when i met him and had been in same job for 12 years, but he started talking about finding another job needing more of a challenge. I work full time. He has 2 adult daughters from his previous marriage. In short he left his job, found another only to be made redundant after 7 months and now he has another job. Its all i hear about everyday, every move he has made at work every conversation he has had, i try to speak and he just rolls straight on talking incessantly not listening to a word i say, to a point where i have given up trying to talk. This is only part of it almost like slowly the tap of emotion,feelings, thoughtfulness interest has been turned off it gradually started to run dry. not doing anything together, not talking as it isnt a 2 way conversation, when i express my feelings its almost like he is oblivious in fact he just blanks me untill i get to the point where i could scream and throw things. i tell him he dosent care about me anymore he is not interested in me we do nothing together dont talk to each other, he dosent listen he shows no emotion.
He is always engaged in something on his phone or on the computer. he started having little bets on horses on line. i know he dosent spend a lot of money on it so i dont mind as he works hard. but its first thing he does in the morning and throughtout the day when he is not at work. He used to clean up for me coming home ( as he works shifts ) now he dosent do anything that tailed off quite quickly, i am fed up as i run the household completely. his new job is permanent nights all the more reason for us not to do anything together he is too tired, but yet he has plenty time to be totally engrossed in what he likes doing. He obsesses over stuff e.g, he heard a song on tv within a week he had bought cd signed up to fanclub on face book and sent friend requests and was looking for concert tickets. He wanted a pair of kicker boots he must have spent every waking moment looking on the internet for the right ones. days hours ! He starts to like a tv programme he requests friends on facebook of the actors/actress. it becomes an obsession.
The most frustrating thing is the talking, i have never wanted to tell him he talks too much didnt want to hurt him wanted him to communicate. I find its not a conversation, friends family notice the same thing too, he interupts when they are speaking, ignoring what they have said and carrys on with his own theme. He forgets things. I ask him to do stuff...didnt have time ...forgot. I am thinking things like he is useless hopeless, boring got no interest all the time and it hurts because i never felt like that about him. I have started to think he must be having an affair because i feel like he just dosent see or hear me. He says i am silly and he loves me and there is no-one else. I COULD GO ON !! It came to a head this past week i was thinking over all of the above and the realtionship was over and i wanted to leave i was crying out and he was blanking me saying i was just stupid always getting on at him. couldnt see what he was doing wrong.
Something was missing something was not right, there was something i just could not put my finger on. It didnt seem like normal behaviour either for me to constantly be nagging him only for him to appear like he was on a different planet and not hearing me. His daughters know their dad dosent listen, i feel that sometimes i have to tell him to ring them, invite them over. i feel if i didnt push he wouldnt. He rings them and i can hear the conversation. he asks if they are alright then goes headlong into a conversation about himself. I started to think this isnt normal behaviour, showing no emotion, carrying on as normal whilst i am cracking up. This excessive talking and not listening, must be a word for it, the fact that he goes through phases of being totally engrossed in stuff and then its out the window. i feel like i am an activity he must have been interested in for a while and then couldnt be bothered with anymore. He has been making me feel like a raving lunatic that i am paranoid being silly, because i feel he must have interests elsewhere. I decided to put these charactoristics into an internet search and here i am. Some of the messages on here sound like an exact copy of me, i could have been writing them.
I could sit here all day and write more, i feel so frustrated. We hadnt been speaking for a week, my search led me to look at adult ADHD, i found your website 2 days ago. I feel i have found an answer. Then could this be half of the male population ? I decide to break the silence with steve, i read out some of the scenarios on here. I got him to do a quiz, which said he had mild symptoms however he says knowing what he knows now he may have answered the questions more honestly. He thought oh what now ? I explained to him how i felt in the context of everything i had read. we talked until 4.30 am. cried and hugged. He admits that some of this does sound like him well a lot ! Now i am worried as he is verging on maxing out on info on adhd etc. I realise that i am not the same person that he met either i have been turned into a droning nag. He cant see how his behaviour has helped that happen, until we read some of the articles on here. Is this it has steve got adhd ? It came back to me the storys his mum told about him when he was small, handful, always on go, little sod, his school report chatters too much bit disruptive. He looks back and wishes he had done more at school, feels he could be doing something better, Steve always seems to be a fairly happy person, he never gets angry just stays really calm and dosent say anything. Most of things i read about adhd say they have short fuse etc. he says he is mad inside, but it dosent seem normal to me he just keeps calm exterior, even if the house was suddenly falling on his head. He smokes heavily and he is always getting up and down out of his seat. He is always rubbing his hands and rolling movements with fingers. he seems on edge but he always says he feels chilled, but he dosent look that way. Reading this has helped me want to save my marriage. I told him i have looked and looked for the reasons as to why it has only seemed to go wrong, how much i love him and dont want to nag him. For the first time he listened to what i was saying he says he feels relief. ? I know its not all as simple as that we have to take a real good look at this now and be sure if it is adhd. Does it sound familiar ?